Placecard Project
Placecard Project The Beginning
Placecard Project Inspiration
After choosing a quote from the 17 Famous Graphic Design Quotes, we were challenged to use expressive typography to portray the quote in a compelling way through type play and color in the spirit of the chosen designer.
“Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that design wasn’t theirs.” -Frank Chimero Choosing the quote was easy for me. I was drawn to this quote due to its humor and playful nature. I’m also very competitive, so that may have something to do with my selection! Next we were assigned a chalkboard. The size I was given was 18’’ x 24’’. I had a lot of fun ideas stored up in my head from the minute I heard about this project. My only apprehension was that we were creating by hand with chalkboard markers. I’m a perfectionist. Chalkboard markers are not a perfectionists first choice. None the less, I was really excited for the challenge of doing this project off of the computer and my every-day doodles fall in the same category so I knew I’d enjoy it.
I drew the majority of my inspiration from Frank Chimero’s work. I loved the way he plays with words in an almost annoyingly obvious way that is still profound and successful. I wanted to replicate his style by keeping my design clean and simple, without creating something that looks boring. These particular pieces coincidentally show a lot of neon color, but that wasn’t necessarily what all of his pieces look like.
Placecard Project The Process Searching for inspiration was a very enjoyable process for me. Next came the sketches. I did half of my sketches in my sketchbook and the other half on the computer. Once I got to critique, I realized the disadvantage of computer iterations was that I wasn’t thinking through how complicated it would be to replicate those things on a chalkboard. For example, I would probably drive myself crazy if I filled in half of my board and tried to make my text out of the negative space. Sketching things out helped me to visualize all the crazy ideas I had running through my head. I was stuck for a while, trying to decide if my composition was compelling enough. The more iterations I made, the happier I was with my thoughts and ideas. Ironic enough, I ended up landing on the first composition I created.
Placecard Project
Placecard Project
Placecard Project After the second in-class critique for this project I started playing with a specific composition and changing little things to see which I liked best.
These were the three iterations I selected from my 20 sketches to present during critique. The class suggested that I ditch the bottom option because it would be extremely hard to duplicate by hand with chalk. The top left option was the first choice by far.
Placecard Project
Placecard Project Final Placecard Project
Because I’m a perfectionist, there was no way I was going to start off with my chalkboard marker straight onto my board. I mapped out my composition (sparing a lot of detail in the typefaces) with graphite before I started with the marker. I’m so glad I did! I feel in love with the way the graphite looked on the dark chalkboard. I would’ve left it this way if I could! There was a lot of erasing and re-working sections of the piece. My composition would have looked completely different without this step. The most challenge part of setting up the board was aligned the words vertically the way I had done so in my sketches.
Placecard Project Reflection The Placecard Project has helped challenge me to use more variety in the typefaces I choose to make up compositions. I tend to stray away from serif typefaces when I creating things by hand, but I knew it was necessary for this piece. The freedom we were given throughout this project was refreshing. I really enjoyed being able to create without being constrained by so many rules and regulations of the assignment. If I were to do the project again I might try to get multiple chalkboard markers so I could keep a nice, fresh tip throughout my piece. I started out with a maker that had already been used by someone else and I noticed a major difference when I switched to a different one. Given more time I would go back over the type several times to make the lines clean, consistent and bright. There was nothing about the project that I didn’t enjoy. I thought there was a generous amount of creative freedom given and enough time to execute our ideas and put them into practice.